Category: painting

May 19, 2015

Sea Creature Art Prints — Now Available on RedBubble

My sea life paintings are finally available to order on Redbubble.com! The crab, octopus, fish, and lobster can’t wait to splash their way over to you.

It all started with a fish drawing on an airplane and evolved into a fun set of art prints. I created the art for the prints with watercolors, colored pencils, and pen. They’re available on cards, prints, phone cases, totes, pouches, pillows, and more! All the orders are printed on-demand by RedBubble. (P.S. Sign up for the RedBubble email list to receive 10% off your first order).

COMING SOON! A coloring book for all ages featuring these drawings! Join my email newsletter for updates: Sign up.

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter.

March 12, 2015

Art Leggings Coming Soon!

My costume, bodypainting, and graphic design worlds are colliding. I’ve been creating designs based on my past costumes and those designs will soon be available printed on leggings! I also have some new ideas in the works too! You may recognize the design in my test pair (pictured above) from my Fiery Phoenix costume from a few years ago. Now that I’ve seen a test pair I just need to finish a few minor tweaks to the artwork and we’ll be rollin’!

If you’re interested in ordering a pair, stay tuned to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or Twitter OR sign up for my email updates .

I’ll be sharing the ordering links for these leggings (and some other designs) very soon!

February 26, 2015

Sympathy Card – The Last Lily to Bloom

After sharing this art with my family and friends, I had some requests for prints and cards. And after checking with my family, I decided to share the ordering links more broadly (see below).

This all came about recently when I wanted to send a sympathy card to a grieving friend, but I just wanted to send a card that was simple and sincere. After reading many sympathy cards after my mother’s passing, I noticed that a lot of the pre-printed messages were either very religious or excessively poetic. So I painted this lily and a simple message of love on a card. I later I painted the lily over and over again and realized it was exactly the kind of card I would have wanted to receive. This lily holds special meaning for me as it was the last flower to bloom in a bouquet by my mother’s bedside, right before her passing. It continues to remind me of her love and I hope you can share love with it too.

The original was created with watercolors and colored pencils.

Sympathy Card:

Order prints here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/breannacooke/works/14103321-the-last-lily-to-bloom-with-text

Lily:

Order prints here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/breannacooke/works/14003145-the-last-lily-to-bloom

October 27, 2014

How To Make Maleficent Horns

Need Maleficent horns ASAP for Halloween? Here’s how I made a headpiece, inspired by the 2014 movie version of Maleficent. I made these pretty quickly so the process isn’t documented as well as I would have liked, but hopefully you’ll find some useful tidbits!

You will need:

Craft foam
Electrical tape
Reticulated foam (upholstery foam or styrofoam could work too)
Black faux snakeskin or pleather fabric
Tin foil and duct tape (for the helmet template)
Utility knife
X-acto knife
Scissors
Contact cement
Paper and sharpie (for the helmet and horn template)

1. Make a helmet with craft foam.

I learned out to make this helmet from Evil Ted Smith’s Youtube tutorial. Watch his video to learn how to make a helmet template that fits your head. Instead of using thick EVA foam, I used craft foam for a more flexible headpiece. I was a bit rushed so the seams aren’t as smooth and rounded as they could be.

2. Draw a horn template, trace it onto reticulated foam, and carve it out.

Draw a horn shape on paper. If you need a template, check out my Maleficent Horn Printable Template digital download. Cut the paper template out, then trace it onto a block of reticulated foam or upholstery foam. Remember to trace out the horn twice.

Then carve the horn out of the foam with a utility knife or with scissors. Make sure the blade is sharp. Compare your horns with each other to be sure you’re getting the right shape. You can find upholstery foam at most fabric stores. Reticulated foam is often used as padding in packaging so you might need to hunt around for some.

If your foam is not thick enough, glue two sheets together with rubber cement or liquid latex.

Use scissors or a box cutter to shape the horns, as if you are whittling a piece of wood. As you work on the second horn, compare it to the first one to be sure they are the same shape.

3. Cover the horns with electrical tape.

I used electrical tape to create the horn ridges. Instead of wrapping the electrical tape around in a spiral, I cut each piece individually. Fold over the top edge of the tape to achieve the ridged effect. For a more realistic-looking horn, you can make the ridges with paper towels and liquid latex. Check out my demon horn tutorial over at Make Magazine that outlines those steps in detail.

4. Glue snakeskin fabric on the front of the headpiece.

Use contact cement to apply the fabric to the front and fold it under the front edge.

5. Glue horns on and cover the helmet with electrical tape.

Glue the horns on with contact cement. To cover the rest of the helmet with tape, start at the base of the horns and weave your pieces of electrical tape around the helmet. I cut shorter pieces instead of trying to wrap long pieces all the way around. Continue to fold the top edge of the tape over to achieve ridges all the way down.

6. Go be fierce!

Need a Maleficent cloak and collar?

Check out my (very hastily made) cloak using a graduation gown as the base and craft foam with wire to make the collar. I’ve outlined the materials and steps here in this blog post.

Need makeup product ideas?

Visit my Amazon Storefront for some makeup and body paint product recommendations.

Shop Makeup Supplies on Amazon